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Chicago Office Update

September 22, 2015

Indiana Limestone block, weighing 9,000 lbs, remnant of historic lakefront escarpment on display in front of “the Bean,” a.k.a. Cloud Gate, sculpture. Following the CAB exhibition, the stones will be transported to Montrose Harbor and utilized in the construction of a new lakefront kiosk.

I want to reflect on and mention a few notable structural feats that occurred last week with the significant help of our Chicago team.

Our Chicago Architecture Biennial pro-bono work resulted in the review of a 90,000 lb excavator that was used to lift 9,000 lb limestone blocks for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s kiosk. The low-boy trailer carrying the excavator weighed 170,000 lbs and we reviewed the logistics involved in driving this equipment on top of Millenium Park’s precast double tees spanning 45′ over the railroad tracks below. The precast had been designed for a 250 PSF live load, but the truck loads were far in excess and applied differently than this uniform load. Ken Maschke and team led this effort.

The winning kiosk by Ultramoderne started construction this week. Last Thurday evening the Park District moved the site to a spot next to Monroe Harbor near the Shedd Aquarium. We had to design a new slab on grade to support the glulam wood columns such that excavation could start this past Monday; the slab pour occurred on Tuesday. All of that happened with some help from our colleagues at GEI. Albert Mena and Eric Wheeler and team led this effort.

At a Chicago high-rise building office project and three years in the making, Mortenson and Crown Corr have removed the glass and pulled 2/3 of the 66 cables to 85% of their design loads in the cable net wall. After reinforcing 6 of the base building column details in order to resist the 1 to 2 million lbs of load we are reintroducing to the structure, we are loading the cables to their design load tensions of from 20 to 70k. Kevin Jackson, Ben Pavlich, Elaine Shapiro, Alloy Kemp, and Diarmuid Kelleher and team led this effort.

Jul 6, 2015
- Press Release

Two of our projects - The University of Chicago Saieh Hall for Economics and the Argonne National Laboratory Advanced Protein Characterization Facility - have received Merit Awards from the Chicago Building Congress (CBC).

Jun 10, 2015
- Press Release

Thornton Tomasetti will serve as the principal engineering consultant for the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) this fall, providing pro bono work for key installations. The first of its kind in North America, CAB will showcase new and commissioned projects by more than 60 firms from 30 countries.